


Carrying Coffins

by scribblu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: "Bucky would have loved this" - a novel, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Banter, Bonds, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bottom Bucky Fest 2019, Depression, Dissociation, Don't Judge Me, I filled my own prompt, I wrote this in two days and no sleep you have been warned, M/M, Magickal Elements, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Supernatural Bonds, Supernatural Elements, Trial by Fire: Extreme Team Bonding Steve Rogers style, bbf2019, because bucky, it's not explicitly stated but Steve's not doing so hot, mentioned/implied, procrastination who is she we don't know her, takes place during the end credits/shawarma scene, the Avengers are curious children and also lowkey fans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 16:17:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18138050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblu/pseuds/scribblu
Summary: When Steve crashed theValkyrieinto the Atlantic, it was supposed to be the end. Even he, pumped full of science and magic, with flesh that pushed out bullets, can die. But it was then, surrounded by metal and water and ice on all sides, that his mind went blank andsomethingreached out.All Steve knows is that he went down suddenly desperate to find Bucky — when Bucky was gone, Steve had felt the yawning nothingness of a broken bond — and woke up in a different century before he could so much as say his name.— written for #bbf2019 and my prompt, which was inspired by thecomic panelwhere Steve starts screaming Bucky's name as soon as he's defrosted.





	Carrying Coffins

**Author's Note:**

> ☆ _cúbare_ is pronounced coo-BEAR.  
> ★ I wrote this in two days with no sleep and no beta. it's kinda raw. I'm so sorry.  
> ☆ this may or may not become a series at some point; there's a bunch of little hints I threw in here that allude to other stuff I've started working on, so. yeah, maybe.  
> ★ how do you center things on this site????

  

 

 

 _Aliens,_ he thinks. _Can you believe it?_

It takes a moment — as it usually does these days — for him to remember why there’s no response. To remember there won’t be a response. It’s the itch of a phantom limb, an ache in his chest that pulses once, twice, before he pulls back into himself.

The rundown little shop they’d stumbled into comes back into focus. The blown out windows, the lopsided table. The two owners slowly hustle around straightening what they can, sweeping up the smaller pieces strewn across the floor; a young man emerges from the back with a large trash bag and holds it open while the older woman scoops up the tiny pieces of their shop and dumps it in. Outside, a pair of officers in uniform walk by. They pause, peer in, register the six of them slumped over the lone table, and continue walking.

Steve shakes off the echo of wind rushing past his ears and returns his attention to his plate. The shawarma is, as promised, delicious.

Bucky would have loved this.

He’s not sure if it’s sunk in yet. Beneath the horror of his city under fire from unfathomable monsters, there’s a sense of awe. The extraordinary has always fascinated him, in no small part because it fascinated Bucky — who was extraordinary himself. Ask anybody from their time and they’ll tell you he was the bee’s knees, but, more than that, he was something else. Buck had been his main source of knowledge for the longest time when it came to the strange and arcane, the magickal and preternatural, but he’d bet his bottom dollar even Bucky wouldn’t have been able to guess _aliens_ existed, of all things.

Bucky would have loved that, too. Once he stopped swearing up a storm at all the rubble and alien goop, anyway. Lord knew Buck hated getting dirty when he didn’t have to.

“Cap.”

Steve forces himself back into the present. It’s a struggle; his bones ache in a way they haven’t since before the war — _his_ war, because some things never change and there has to be a distinction — and his stupid brain still wants to reach out and _connect_ the way he always does when he’s hurt and hurting. It’s instinct, a reflex that burrowed into the very marrow of him and never let go even when the one it was meant for is long gone. He thought he had it under control when SHIELD sent him away to that cabin in the middle of nowhere, but all he’d done was quietly lose his mind with grief.

The aliens had been a welcomed distraction.

He looks up from his plate and knows he’s drifted again when he meets silence and open staring. Outside of battle, the here and now gets a little fuzzy. Most days, it feels like he’s walking through a bizarre dream.

“Sorry,” he says around a mouthful he doesn’t remember taking, “whadja say?”

“Hotel, us, sleep,” Stark says, waving his gauntlet at the messy pile of them. “You in?”

Steve knows he’s being teased, but he’s too tired to rise to the bait. “Sure.” And then, because he can’t help seeing something of Howard in his son, he adds, “thanks.”

“No problem, Capsicle.”

In spite of his own misgivings, Steve thinks Bucky would have gotten a kick out of Tony and his gadgets — and his penchant for awful nicknames — too.

He liked to hang around Howard and talk shop during their downtime; those two got on like a house on fire. He liked taking things apart and building them up again, and he loved working on cars — with the notable exception of and extreme hatred for Ford, no matter how much easier and cheaper they were to get ahold of. Given what happened to his father, no one blamed him. That borderline obsessiveness extended to guns during the war, and the look on Bucky’s face when Howard handed him a custom rifle was one Steve rarely got to see during those days. With all the fancy technology at his fingertips, all the scientific breakthroughs, with all the magic available — freely, openly, and without any of the stigma they used to carry —  Bucky would have had the time of his life.

He would have loved the future, Steve thinks. What he wouldn’t give to have him here to see it. What he wouldn’t give to have him here.

Steve reaches without thinking. Instinctive, reflexive. It takes him a moment to remember why there’s no response. There won’t be a response, not anymore, and the loss pulses through him like a missing heartbeat.

“How come you keep doin’ that?”

The tone catches Steve’s attention immediately, though he can’t pinpoint why. Maybe it’s because Clint hasn’t said a word since they scraped Tony off the asphalt. He and Natasha are bent close, supporting each other, and they’re both looking at him as if he’s a puzzle to solve. His hackles rise a little. “Doing what?”

Beside him, Banner snorts awake.

“The thing with your eyes,” Clint says, still chewing. Save the world from hostile aliens and a megalomaniacal god and suddenly everyone loses their manners. “You’ve been doing it since we got here. What’s it mean?”

Steve frowns. “My — oh.” _Oh._ He remembers the sickly, unnatural glow of possessed eyes, the things they were forced to see and do. Natasha’s kept a constant point of contact with Clint the whole time. It's a wonder they're not suspicious instead of curious. “It’s…” and the words stick in his throat like tar.

Bucky had been the wordsmith, could spin fantastical tales out of thin air, most of them formed at Steve's side. Every now and again during the war the Bucky he knew growing up would resurface and the growing distance between them disappeared. Everyone got a kick out of Bucky's stories, no one ever knew if they were real or not — and, sometimes, when it was just the two of them in a tent, close enough to touch, Buck would play _Remember When?_ And they’d speak fondly of their shitty tenement and old Miss Rodriguez who lived downstairs and didn’t speak a word of English, but made them a custard cake and bread pudding every Friday when she could; the girls like them they would escort on double dates, the protests Steve would drag him to, only to have Bucky drag him back out with a bloody nose and split knuckles. With their legs tangled together and Bucky’s face tucked in close, Steve could happily listen to his soft, quiet rasp for hours.

Steve misses him something awful.

It feels so simple and too complicated to explain all at once. He doesn’t know where to start. In his defense, he’s never really had to before. People usually figured it out on their own, or they carefully pretended they didn’t notice. Without Bucky here, he supposes it’s not so obvious.

His throat closes. The words crash against the back of his teeth.

Two months since that cabin, another two since the ice, and he still can’t stop reaching for Bucky. Like a kid reaching for his security blanket. Except what was seventy years to the rest of the world still feels like yesterday. For him, it was _;_ he closes his eyes and he’s on that train in the Alps, he’s in that bombed out bar desperately trying to get drunk, he’s pointing the _Valkyrie’s_ nose into the Atlantic with an overwhelming sense of relief drowning out Peggy’s words. He’s trying to catch up, he’s trying to stop looking for that pretty face in a crowd, he’s trying to stop _reaching,_ but it’s too new. His whole life long Bucky’s been a hum in the back of his head, a melody only they knew the words to. And now it’s gone.

Steve lasted all of two days without him. It still hurts. Adapting to this new century has been difficult and every victory, big and small, feels hollow now that he’s alone.  

And — secretly, stubbornly — he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t need to see a therapist to know he’s disconnected from the world around him. He doesn’t _want_ to talk to anyone, he doesn’t _want_ to move on. He’s not ready to let go. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to get up and soldier on. He’ll do it because that’s what he was remade to do, but, oh, what he wouldn’t give to go back to sleep and never wake up again.

It’s somehow different trying to talk about it. He thinks about it every day, several times a day. He dreams about it. Keeping busy helps, and the twenty-first century has plenty in the way of distractions — aliens notwithstanding. But beneath the shock of finding himself in another time, there’s a constant buzz of anxiety that threatens to swallow him whole. If he gives that fear a voice he doesn’t think he’d survive it becoming real.

But he’d fought off an army with these people. He’d shed blood with them. They’re a mess all their own, and after they’d gotten over themselves they’d worked well together. There’s a bond, here, waiting for him to grab hold and tether it — small and thin and weak as it may be, he can _feel_ it. He’d felt the same thing with the Howlies and he’d latched on without a thought. They’d made that choice together. With time, he could have something like that again.

Trial by fire: extreme team bonding, Steve Rogers style. Bucky would not be amused. Or maybe he would have been. Probably would have called Steve high maintenance, too.

He’s not ready for that. Not yet.

But, maybe. One day. If he can ever shake the gut-wrenching terror that he'd left the love of his life to die cold and alone and afraid at the bottom of a ravine.

And this, here, is the wound that won't heal, the thing that's eaten away at him since SHIELD found him.

Steve remembers, vaguely, waking up with a name stuck in his throat.

The ice burned in him still, the crunch of metal screeching in his ears as the _Valkyrie_ took its last dive. He doesn’t know why that name bubbled up then, days after the last time he dared to speak it. Perhaps because it was the end of things; even he, pumped full of science and magic, with flesh that pushed out bullets, can die. He thought. He’d _hoped._ And it was then, surrounded by metal and water and ice on all sides, as the windows imploded and the blood froze in his veins, that his mind went blank and _something_ reached out.

All Steve knows is that he went down suddenly desperate to find Bucky — when Bucky was gone, he was _gone,_ Steve had felt the yawning _nothingness_ like a wordless scream because anything less and he would have scoured every inch of those mountains on his hands and knees — and woke up in a different century before he could so much as say his name.

Who knows what SHIELD thought, defrosting Captain America only to watch him screech to life swinging and calling for a dead man. He never bothered to ask. Doesn’t care to. Those last few minutes are still a blur, caught in the throes of a hallucination. For all of his eidetic memory some things are still unclear, but he revisits the _Valkyrie’s_ last flight every night.

It scares him because it was _familiar._ It was cold, and it felt like the countless times he and Bucky would reach for each other, easy as air. It felt like home and it felt like pain. He could taste blood and snow in his mouth, felt his bones like broken shards of glass. But it felt like _Bucky._

Not so much during the war. Not with Bucky so closed off and hurting, different, changed, but still undeniably _Bucky,_ and Steve riding high on purpose and _belonging_ and — Peggy. Sometimes, Bucky would let him in. The few times he'd tried after Azzano he'd met a solid, cool blankness that stung, and — because it was Bucky, because there was a war going on and people depended on him — Steve let it go.

But those last few moments on the _Valkyrie_ almost felt like a homecoming, were it not for the confused terror that reached out and tore through him more powerful than any connection they’d shared before. As if all of Bucky’s careful shying away had concentrated into a whisper-soft howling of _Steve? Steve? Where am I? Steve? Where am I Steve where are you where SteveSteveSt—_

Sometimes, he wakes up and it’s those last few minutes all over again. A tug, a blur, then a blankness that shocks him awake. His arm will ache for hours. He can’t get warm. Months since the ice and it’s happened twice, but it’s that same wound reopened and he’s left to struggle anew.

And there’s no Peggy to help him forget, no Howlies to commiserate. There are times he wishes he had an excuse to go back to that cabin in the woods if only to shuffle through his memories in peace. To trace that fish-hook smile and remember the laughter of their yesteryears, the rare, stolen moments during the war. To remember the sounds Bucky made beneath him, how he felt wrapped around Steve; the way he'd go lax and compliant in Steve's arms and soak up affection like a lazy kitten. The way he'd let Steve in close enough to kiss his ear and call him _Jaime,_ and watch the goosebumps form on his skin, feel the shiver running through him.

He’s lost days stuck in his head. He’ll feed himself on autopilot, he’ll run in the mornings to try and shake off the frost, but he’s not present. He has a plethora of things to keep him occupied, and all of it feels distant. Fuzzy, slippery. Sometimes, he feels as though he’s taken a step back and he’s watching everything unfold over his own shoulder. Sometimes, he stares up at the ceiling of his SHIELD-issued apartment and has to convince himself to get out of bed.

Sometimes, he thinks they didn’t thaw him out all the way.

“The Captain seeks the other half of his _hugr,”_ says Thor, surprising him. He looks at Steve with sadness and sounds twice as tired, but kind. It reminds him of the looks he’d gotten after the train, when they stopped pretending they didn’t know. “Your people call this the soul — the very essence of your being. When you are thusly intertwined you take on features of your bonded, yes?” Thor’s voice lowers considerably. “They must have had very beautiful eyes, Steven. When you reach for them, yours become a fetching shade of violet.”

“Lavender,” Steve corrects. He doesn’t mean to. His mouth moves of its own volition, the words falling off his tongue gracelessly. “Bucky’s eyes are — they were lavender.”

He hadn’t known that, in the beginning. It wasn’t until after the summer of ‘34, when Bucky revealed himself and took Steve’s illness as his own, that Steve discovered colors he’d never known before. What he’d thought was an odd shade of blue had actually been the most beautiful, marbled purple, veined through with brilliant striations of gold; when they glowed, as they tended to do when he was using his power, they were mesmerizing. Bucky — beautiful, charismatic, butterfly Bucky — had gotten bashful with all of Steve’s staring. He couldn’t have helped himself if he’d tried. He’d discovered that they paled when Buck was happy, got darker when upset.

After the serum, Bucky ducked his head more, lowered his eyes. A year into the war and his eyes didn’t change at all anymore. They were no less enchanting, but Steve never learned if Bucky had somehow learned to control them, or if he’d stopped feeling anything — for Steve, for everything — altogether.

“There was a study about that,” Banner says, slowly knitting the words together. “In the case of interracial couples who were bonded from birth, constant link activity over time would eventually affect the human. One case with a, uh — what were they called — angel… angle? No, ali-something.” He scratches his eyebrow. “One of the bird fae, I think. Chilean, maybe?”

“Alicanto,” Natasha supplies.

“Right!” Banner frowns. “Wait, no, alicanto have the, uh, the luminous feathers, right? Yeah, no, these have the, uh, the transparent wings. The ones that look like stained glass. You know what I’m talking about?”

Natasha quirks an eyebrow. “Are you talking about sylph? The windwalkers? They’re closer to butterflies than birds.”

It’s surreal how they’re talking so openly, so easily about fae. Thrilling, too. It pulls him from his reverie and anchors him. Steve remembers a time when mentioning the secondary race was as taboo as holding another man’s hand, as blasphemous as casting a spell.

“That one!” The tips of Bruce’s ears turn red. “Oh man, I was way off. Shit, sorry. But, uh. There was — there was this one case with a human woman and a sylph woman where the human developed vestigial wings after seventeen, eighteen years. They were together another forty-something before they’d gotten big enough to carry her weight.”

Steve is fascinated. He’s never read any of these studies. “Was it on purpose?” At Bruce’s frown, Steve clarifies. “Did they mean for her to grow wings, or — ”

“Oh. No, no, it wasn’t intentional.” Bruce pauses for a drink. “In every case it just kind of happened. I mean, no one can be one hundred percent certain since the birthmarked are so rare, but of the handful they found, yeah. There was always some kind of genetic exchange going on. A bunch of theories have been published, but, again, it’s impossible to be sure.”

In the silence that follows, Steve wonders.

“Bucky,” Tony cuts in with none of his usual bluster.

Steve blinks away the image of Buck limping away from the prison camp for the better part of a day with a busted ankle before he was walking fine again; of Bucky coming back from one of his secret missions with Peggy, shadows in his eyes and what looked like a week old bruise, only to have it gone the next morning. Bucky wasn't keen on talking about it, and Steve didn't push. He wishes he had.

“Bucky, as in James Barnes? As in _Sergeant_ James Buchanan Barnes?” Steve doesn’t know if Tony wants him to answer or not since he keeps getting louder. He's guessing the questions are rhetorical. “Bucky, as in the greatest darkling in history?”

“Don't call him that,” Steve growls with a mouth full of knives. Old rage flares to the surface.

“Looks like he got the fangs, too,” Tony says, brows raised high.

“It's not a slur,” Natasha hurries to explain, catching Steve's glare. Bruce’s eyes dart between them, wary, and Steve feels a nibble of guilt over that — he'll never forget the resignation, the defeat on Bruce's face right before he shifted — but he will not apologize. Not for this. “Not anymore. It's a classification for a type of fae. Think of nationalities in humans.” She places a hand on his bicep and squeezes. “It’s the same as calling me Russian. Words like that hold no meaning, Steve. Even Stark knows better than that.” She looks over. “Right, Tony?”

“Duh. Genius, remember?” Tony visibly collects himself. “I would never tarnish the memory of America's greatest heroes. Y'know, unless they were wearing blue spandex or something.”

Steve rolls his eyes, slightly mollified. “With all due respect, ma’am, it's been my experience that names don't lose their meaning just because someone decides to use them to classify an entire race of people. Quite the opposite, actually.” And the term darkling predates even succubus, the other archaic — and, as far as he knows, still insulting — misnomer. SHIELD gave him a crash course on What Not to Say, but they seem to have forgotten everything else. Steve doesn’t regret his knee-jerk reaction to something assholes have been spitting at Bucky their whole lives.

His extra teeth recede. His guard does not.

Natasha gives him a small, quick, lopsided grin. More of a smirk than anything. And, _god,_ if she doesn't remind him of Bucky when she does that. It's uncanny.

“More importantly,” Stark cuts in again, _“Bucky Barnes_ was your soulmate?”

Steve says nothing. It's an answer in and of itself.

“You’re talking about the guy with the highest kill streak ever recorded in war, right?” Clint chimes in, sitting up. “I watched a documentary on him, dude never missed a shot even with those peashooters you guys had.”

What? “There’s a documentary?”

Bruce waves his hand in front of Tony’s face. Tony doesn’t flinch. “I think you broke him.”

“He was the only cúbare in history strong enough to bring down entire platoons of men when most can barely take down one.” Natasha’s eyes crinkle a bit at the corners. “He was the only cúbare history looked on favorably until the Cold War. Even _I_ heard about him.” She pauses to swallow her bite. “Of course there were documentaries.”

Documentaries. Plural.

That’s not completely mortifying or anything.

“Yeah,” Clint enthuses, more animated than Steve’s ever seen him during their short acquaintance, “he’s one of the first people SHIELD had us read up on. There’s a lot of shit in the archives they don’t put in the history books, but, _man,_ none of them mentioned you guys were soulmates.” He rips off another chunk of shawarma. “That makes _so_ much more sense.”

“There was speculation,” Natasha adds. “Remember that think-piece last year?”

“Yeah, but no one’s gonna come out and say Captain America’s gay — or bi, or whatever — _and_ linked with a cúbare,” Clint reminds her. “People would lose their shit, good and bad. A collective losing of shit. A social and political shitstorm. Shit would hit the — ”

“We get it.” Natasha throws him a flat look. “Things would get shitty.”

Should he feel proud? He does. Violated, too; he’s done his best to stay away from any historical mentions of himself, not quite ready to face that particular brand of embarrassment. But the world _should_ know how important Bucky was, even if they didn’t realize just how important he was to Steve.

This, though, he doesn’t know what to do with. He can’t get a solid read on the room. Clint seems excited more than anything while Banner seems nonplussed, digging into what has to be his fourth serving. Tony is — honestly, Steve can’t tell. He looks like someone pushed his off button. Thor’s been listening to them, openly fascinated. It’s easy to forget he’s even more of a stranger here than Steve, full armor aside.

Natasha is eerily reminiscent of how Bucky used to be. He knows her the best of them, having wandered through SHIELD a time or two — which is to say he doesn’t know her too well, either. She’s his handler, but she’s kept her distance for the most part. She can switch on a dime, she’s careful, and she has an animated face when she wants to. Right now, there’s something he thinks might be amused toying with the corners of her mouth. Something warm, warmer than he’s gotten from her thus far.

"You did not tell me your beloved was an accomplished warrior, Steven!" Thor cheerfully booms. Someone yelps behind the counter. "To have recorded him in the odes of time is a high honor, indeed! My people do this, also."

Beloved, huh. He likes that.

“Bucky was my best friend,” Steve says. Then, quietly, “I’ve known him my whole life. Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.” It’s the most he’s ever admitted aloud. Emotion wells up, strong and sharp. He swallows it back down, clears his throat. “I read that gay and interracial marriages were legal now.” And how he’d ached with lost opportunities when he learned that.

Bonds are much more common nowadays. People make them all the time. Blood bonds, pacts, promise rings — all kinds. All you need is a license and they’re cheaper than marriage, depending on what kind and how many people are involved. He’d read up on as much as he could find on the internet, and it was _a lot._ But there was precious little on the birthmarked. Even now, they’re rare.

It’s amazing. They didn't have licenses back then. No one talked about bonds, and they damn sure didn’t let on if there was anything _untoward_ going on. Only those who came from magic knew about it, and only those who knew about it would practice. His mother never dared let him practice for fear it would take too much out of him, but then along came Bucky and — well, the rest is history.

Regardless of this strange conversation, he’s relieved; the simple act of saying his bonded’s name out loud is a benediction he didn’t expect. Steve spends a majority of his days trying not to drown in his memories, but it’s impossible when he’s physically spent. Exhausted as he is, all he can think about is Bucky. Thor cracked some of the ice; if they let him, he could talk about Bucky all day.

It’s the other thing that’s an issue.

“Oh yeah, completely legal, but, you know.” Clint shrugs. Steve does not, in fact, know. “Some people are still stuck in the dark ages. Don’t you watch the news?”

Sometimes. It’s depressing to him, mostly, and that’s saying something. “I’ve been catching up on them me-mes.”

The pause that follows is loaded. No one moves, save for the owners sweeping in the background. Even Bruce stares, frozen mid-bite. Steve reviews what he said and wonders if he’s made another faux pas; it wouldn’t be the first time.

Then Clint tosses his head back and _guffaws._

“Say that again,” Natasha demands, startlingly intense.

“What, me-mes?”

Natasha rolls her lips over her teeth. Clint starts wheezing.

“What are these me-mes?” Thor wants to know. Clint doubles over sobbing. Natasha covers her mouth with her hand, eyes fever-bright.

“This is gonna be _great,”_ Clint manages through his tears.

 _Maybe,_ Steve allows, watching the rest of them follow suit, snickering to themselves like children. There’s a hole in his heart and an absence in his head; chunks have been torn out of him that still leave him jagged and sore. He’s an open wound and he knows it. But this is the most he’s felt connected to anything in this brave new world, the longest he’s been present since that painfully vivid hallucination that sunk its claws in deep and refused to budge. This ragtag group of would-be heroes might be just the distraction he needs — apart from global annihilation and fucking _aliens._

He’s not ready to let go. He’ll never let go. He left home at the bottom of a ravine on a train going a buck-twenty. And Steve can’t follow him this time; he already tried that and it didn’t stick. Maybe, one day, he’ll find a way that does. Maybe, one day, he’ll stop feeling as though he’s haunting himself.

For now, he’ll soldier on because that’s what he was remade to do. It’s what he’s always done. There’s a city that needs rebuilding and people that need help. There will always be new bullies hiding behind new bullshit reasons to pick on the little guy. He still has the shield. This, at least, he’s familiar with.

For now, the company’s good and the food is delicious. His ghost can wait a little longer.

 


End file.
